Bruce,

Mea culpa. I committed the mistake of saying the sentence in my head without trying out different intonation contours on it. The tag can get different contours too, and the one I matched up with the sentence didn't work. As soon as I shift contours, it does. The connections among choice of contraction, choice of contour, and what you can do with the sentence highlight, I think, the way contraction is acting as far more than just a kind of phonological shorthand.

I think the basic approach -- dealing with the [S aux'nt Predicate]/[S aux not Predicate] alternation as reflecting [S (~Aux) Predicate]/ (S aux (~Predicate)]. with there being differences between the two in meaning -- still works. The choice of contraction signifies something. With this kind of negation though, it's a bit like trying to pin down the differences between "I don't have any lutefisk" and "I have no lutefisk" (granted, either way, the speaker probably isn't too upset).

--- Bill Spruiell





-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Webmail bdespain
Sent: Sun 8/1/2010 9:10 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: question about negative contractions
 
My take on, "*Bjorn's not reading that book, is he?"*
is that the speaker anticipates being surprised to find that Bjjorn is
reading that book.
My take on, "*Bjorn isn't reading that book, is he?"*
is that the speaker has reasons to think that Bjorn is not reading that book
and wants confirmation.
The normal intonation on these tag questions is quite different.

Bruce


On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 2:13 PM, Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Potential extra spin on the "Questions split the subject and aux" approach
> (and apologies if someone's already said this -- I'm losing track of the
> thread). I'm adapting it from Halliday, but if there are parts that don't
> work, blame me -- I don't have the book handy, and am going on memory.
>
> In your average statement, you can negate the auxiliary that carries the
> tense (the "finite marker"), and you can negate the predicate (among other
> things). The contracted version is a negation of the finite, so "Bjorn isn't
> reading that book" has a negated finite, while "Bjorn's not reading that
> book" has a negated predicate. The contraction vs. non-contraction
> distinction is thus marking a difference in what's being negated. In a lot
> of cases, the distinction may not have much direct bearing on the
> truth-value of the statement in traditional terms, but it shows up
> interestingly in tag questions: "Bjorn's not reading that book, is he?"
>  sounds more awkward (to me at least) than does "Bjorn isn't reading that
> book, is he?"
>
> Questions usually have the finite before the subject, so whether you're
> negating the finite or the predicate determines whether the negative comes
> before or after the Subject. When it's before the Subject, in an
> interrogative it thus has to be a finite-negator, and hence sounds odd
> unless contracted. So, "Why doesn't S V O" is the usual for a negated
> finite, with "Why does S not V O" being the equivalent for the negated
> predicate.
>
>
> --- Bill Spruiell
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Craig
> Hancock
> Sent: Sun 8/1/2010 11:52 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: question about negative contractions
>
> Herb,
>   I agree that we may not need this level of distinction outside of
> linguistics classes. But I wonder how you might advise countering the
> notion that people are being lazy when they don't pronounce things
> "properly" when they speak. I think it might help to say that there is
> a more or less "scientific" explanation for it, but how might we water
> that down without being inaccurate?
>
> Craig
>
>
>  >
>
>  Brett,
> >
> > I suspect you misspoke below when you wrote "for reasons why -N'T should
> > be considered an inflectional ending (or "clitic" in technical terms)."
> > The point of Zwicky&Pullum's argument is that inflectional endings and
> > clitics aren't the same thing, and "n't" is an inflectional ending, not a
> > clitic.
> >
> > Clitic is a useful category in grammatical analysis, although it's not
> > easy to define.  Contrasting clitics with inflectional endings is one
> > thing.  Defining clitics across languages or even across English is a
> > little harder. Roughly speaking, on a scale of how bound they are and
> what
> > they bind to, affixes are the most bound and words the least, hence
> > Bloomfield's definition of "word" as a "minimal free form."  Clitics sit
> > between affixes and words. They are bound to grammatical categories, like
> > NP, not to roots or stems as affixes are. Unstressed words like "the,"
> > "and," prepositions, "that" as a subordinating conjunctions, etc. behave
> > like clitics rather than words.
> >
> > While the affix/clitic/word distinction is important in grammatical
> > analysis, I doubt that it has much of a place in teaching grammar in high
> > school or college.
> >
> > Herb
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brett Reynolds
> > Sent: Saturday, July 31, 2010 7:56 PM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: question about negative contractions
> > Importance: Low
> >
> > On 2010-07-28, at 3:53 PM, Tony DeFazio wrote:
> >
> >> Can someone explain, please, why we can say "Why don't you like her?"
> >> but not "Why do not you like her?" A student asked and I was at a loss
> >> for an explanation.
> >
> > Zwicky & Pullum (1983) <
> http://www.stanford.edu/~zwicky/ZPCliticsInfl.pdf>
> > put forth the argument that -N'T, though historically a contraction, has
> > actually become an inflectional ending for auxiliary verbs. That is, they
> > say it's like the past tense -ED or third person -S. This approach is
> > followed in the recently mentioned grammars by Huddleston & Pullum. See
> > the paper linked to above for reasons why -N'T should be considered an
> > inflectional ending (or "clitic" in technical terms).
> >
> > If -N'T is a negative inflection, and I think it is, then the reason we
> > can say "Why don't you like her?" (or "Why can't you be there" etc.) is
> > because the inflection simply can't be separated from the auxiliary verb.
> > The other question, why you can't say "Why do not you like her?", is a
> > question about adverb placement in general, not just "not". You can't say
> > "Why do never you go there?" "Why do always you say that?" etc.
> >
> > Best,
> > Brett
> >
> > -----------------------
> > Brett Reynolds
> > English Language Centre
> > Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning Toronto,
> > Ontario, Canada [log in to unmask]
> >
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